The Return Of Elvira, Mistress Of The DarkThe Return Of Elvira, Mistress Of The 
Dark, A Videoscope Sneak Peek At Her Haunted Hills!
 
By: Terry, Tiffany & Becky DuFoe
 
The Mistress Of The Dark sheds new light on the rumors of an all new Elvira 
movie as Cassandra Peterson invades our cinema dreams in her first full-length 
feature film since the release of New World’s Elvira, Mistress of the Dark in 
1988. The October 2001 feature, Elvira’s Haunted Hills (pun-intended) was shot 
in Romania at Media Pro Studios with the working title, Elvira’s Un-pleasant 
Dreams. This homage to AIP Poe films is pure camp as one might expect from the 
movie poster tag line that reads, “You never know what you'll find around the 
next curve!”. 
 
The setting is Carpathia in 1851. When Elvira gets kicked out of an Inn for a 
slight monetary discrepancy, she is rescued by Dr. Bradley Bradley who takes her 
to stay at the castle Hellsubus in the hills high above the village. The family 
that haunts castle Hellsubus is pure Holly-WEIRD & in true Roger Corman fashion 
Elvira just happens to resemble the quirky Vladimere Hellsubus former "missing" 
wife Elura, also played by Peterson. Needless to say she doesn’t have a “ghost” 
of a chance as Rocky Horror Picture Show star Richard O’Brien (Count Vladimere) 
hams it up in pure drive-in cinema style which was perfected by the master 
Vincent Price in the sixties. 
 
Cassandra Peterson and John Paragon (Breather) from Movie Macabre wrote Elvira’s 
Haunted Hills. Directed by Sam Irvin, (Guilty As Charged and God’s & Monsters) 
this ultra low B- budget venture begins the independent filmmaker careers of 
actress Cassandra Peterson and husband/producer Mark Pierson who partially 
funded the project themselves with the other half of the budget coming from Mark 
Pierson’s parents. Pierson believes the movie is guided by the spirit of 
Saturday Night Live member Phil Hartman. The late Phil Hartman was a friend of 
the couple for 30 years. Phil Hartman performed with red haired Cassandra 
Peterson in the early days of the comedy troupe, The Groundlings. Mark Pierson 
feels that Hartman brings them luck and watches overhead as the fate of the film 
relies on a single fortune cookie or two along the way. 
 
Cassandra Peterson is no stranger to luck as she survived a life threatening 
accident as a child, which left her with burns that covered a large percentage 
of her young body. She later became the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas at the 
age of 17. Raised on Ed Wood, The Twilight Zone, & yes, Vincent Price she later 
answered a local casting call to replace the deceased TV horror host Seymour at 
the independent Los Angeles television station KHJ in what became Movie Macabre 
history in the eighties. National syndication and exposure for products like 
Coors beer shot her to fame as the most celebrated television horror host in pop 
culture. Her gothic celebrity caused her to be sued by vintage Los Angeles 
horror hostess Vampira who ironically starred in Cassandra’s favorite cheesy 
film, Plan Nine from Outer Space from auteur Edward Wood, Jr. Cassandra Peterson 
denied lifting her Elvira character from Vampira and the case was thrown out of 
court. 
 
This interview with Cassandra Peterson and Mark Pierson began a journey of 
several months that started with the films announcement at Knotts Berry Farm 
during her live Halloween show and resulted in our very first meeting at the 
vintage Sony Studios, formerly Columbia Pictures. We attended for a private 
screening of Elvira’s Haunted Hills. We were later invited to their offices that 
strangely resembled a castle and housed the Elvira Mobile from the film Elvira, 
Mistress Of The Dark in their garage. We then walked to a hidden Hollywood spot 
for lunch where the lid was pried off of the coffin that hid former secrets that 
once lied within Elvira’s Haunted Hills!


Terry:  I wanted to find out first of all how did the project of the movie come 
about?
 
Mark:  Well it’s a long story.  More recently it began in September 1999.  There 
was a Groundlings Theatre event dedicating the theatre itself in the name of 
Phil Hartman, who was a friend of Cassandra’s and mine, and other Groundlings, 
as well as a lot of people, but um, we were there with John Paragon, Cassandra’s 
writing partner, and John went home that night and had a dream about this movie. 
 And John has an eight ball that is... you know, those eight balls... 
“definitely”, “yes”, “no”, “maybe”...
 
Terry:  Uh huh.
 
Mark:  When Phil died his two brothers Paul and John took some of his ashes and 
put them in boxes with these eight balls, so just the part that reads the eight 
ball shows, and you put the box on the table, or where ever.  And so ever since 
John got that three years ago... actually three years ago tomorrow is the that 
day Phil died.  That’s day I’ll remember forever.  I knew Phil for thirty years. 
 But, that eight ball has never been wrong.  John’s asked it about everything, 
and got up that morning after having a dream about making this movie, and he 
asked it, and it said “definitely yes”, and he got really excited and he called 
Cassandra and I.  And we, just like a lightning bolt, you know, striking us, 
felt yes, this is right.  This is it.  We’re going to make this movie one way or 
another.  Now from there it, you know... it got made.  That being said, you 
know, when Elvira was hosting a lot of movies back in the early 80s, we were 
saying, wouldn’t it be funny if we did this, or we did that, parody this, and 
parodying that, so there was a lot of things that go back to then even.  If you 
remember the character Adrienne, the one who’s out singing... lip synching...
 
Terry:  Right.
 
Mark:  That was an idea that goes back a long way, so a lot of things finally 
got to be put into this film that, you know, Cassandra had thought of here and 
there over a long period of time.
 
Terry:  You wouldn’t really call this a sequel to the first movie at all?
 
Mark:  Not at all, no, absolutely not.  You know, the first movie is 
contemporary, and this takes place in 1851 Carpathia.  And I really love it now 
because it’s a whole new era for Elvira.  She’s celebrating... just celebrating 
her 20th anniversary, going into the new millennium and it’s been so long since 
she’s been hosting horror movies.  It’s been so long since she’s been a pitch 
person for Coor’s beer.  So it’s time for like a new identity for Elvira and I 
think this film will help re-introduce her to a lot of people in this gothic 
horror university, which I think is a much better environment for her; more 
appropriate.  I think it just works.  It clicked... it worked, you know?  And I 
think John, Cassandra, and I all felt that at the same time, that yeah it’s 
Elvira, and yeah it’s 1851, but so what?  And I feel, you know, now that the 
movies made and I see it, it’s like yeah, it really does work.
 
Terry:  Well, I think where it takes place, will probably play a lot more to the 
gothic crowd that follows this type of stuff too.  Do you think a lot of your 
fans are the gothic people who go to the gothic clubs and so forth?
 
Mark:  A lot of them are, but Elvira is really mainstream.
 
Terry:  Right.
 
Mark:  It’s African American, it’s Hispanic, it’s gay, it’s... you know, it’s 
blue-collar, it’s women, it’s young, it’s old.  I mean I have demographic 
reports in the other room and demographically she’s strong in every category 
except for people who make $100,000 to $150,000 or more.
 
Terry:  Now this movie you actually made yourself. You’re not with a major 
studio backing it. This is basically a independent thing between you and you’re 
wife, and people involved.
 
Mark:  Uh huh.
 
Terry:  I understand that you actually got financing from your parents?
 
Mark:  In part, yeah.  We put up, Cassandra and I at this point, more than half 
the money.  My parents put up almost half.
 
Terry:  Does that scare you?  Make you nervous?
 
Mark:  At times, um, but lately I’ve been learning to relax.  I mean, there’s 
not that much pressure on me now, for example, to sell it.  And there’s no 
reason... I mean, it’s been 13 years since we made the first Elvira movie, and 
we’ve tried to find studios to finance making the next Elvira movie, based on 
the success of the first one.  And it’s been a tough road and we’ve gotten close 
a couple of times, but it didn’t happen and we realized that, you know, if we’re 
going to make this happen we’ve got to do it ourselves.  So, we have and now 
that we have we don’t have the pressure of someone saying you have to do this or 
do that.  And so we’ll see how it plays out.  The difficult... as I’m finding 
out really for the first time.  I’ve been in show business all my life, but I 
haven’t been to this stage of actually having an independent film, marketing 
directly itself, trying to sell it to studios, trying to publicize it, give it 
to the world.  It’s not anything like the first Elvira movie 13 years ago which 
was produced with Indy Pictures and New World.  And I’m one of four producers 
and my title was more titular.  “Oh you’re the actress’ husband.  That’s nice.  
Go over there and watch us do what we do.”
 
Terry:  I know you’re wife is a big Ed Wood fan.  Now that you’re actually doing 
this on you’re own and making you’re own films, does it kind of make you feel 
like Ed, maybe knowing what he went through?
 
Mark:  No... (laughs)
 
Terry:  Not really?
 
Mark:  Not at all, no, no.  We’ve been in Hollywood all these years, and in all 
these years, we’ve met a lot of different people.  A lot of fringe people.  You 
go to the Saturn Awards and other places like that, there’s a lot of people in 
Hollywood who are kind of like on the fringe.  They’re not like real players on 
the studios.  They’re not like making big-budgeted movies.  You know, all due 
respect to all the people who make these B-movies out there, you know, $50,000, 
$100,000, $150,000, you know, movie is a whole another category of movie than I 
think our film is.  In all due respect to those films and what they do in their 
market place and everything, that’s really another world.  Elvira is... kind of 
like, has her feet in both worlds.  And we’re, you know, we aspire to do 
something more with it than just rehashing a lot of things.
 
Terry:  Now how would you describe the plot?  Just a quick synopsis here?
 
Mark:  Well, it’s parody of the Vincent Price, Edgar Allan Poe films, 
particularly “Pit and the Pendulum”, “House of Usher”, and “Tomb of Lygeria”, 
with a little bit of Hammer thrown in there, a little bit of “Fearless Vampire 
Killers”, some... you know, in homage to those gothic horror films.  The plot 
itself is Elvira, in 1851 Carpathia, is with her assistant French maid Zuzu, 
starting at an Inn, they’re on their way to Harrisburle in order to do her 
Parisian Can-Can Show, but along... hitchhiking along the way they get picked up 
by Dr. Bradley Bradley, who takes them in a coach to the Hellsubus castle, where 
there is the tortured Hellsubus family.  A cursed family, straight out of Edgar 
Allan Poe.  You’re not quite sure what everyone’s problems are at first, but you 
find out by the end.  Vladimir is a schizophrenic character, and haunted by his 
ancestry, and Elvira, you know, manages to survive the circumstances, and uh... 
I don’t know.  This is the first time I’ve been asked to give the plot of the 
movie.
 
Terry:  Now you actually knew Vincent Price.  Is that right?
 
Mark:  Mmmhmm.
 
Terry:  And the movie is pretty much dedicated to him?  At least at the 
screening you said that.
 
Mark:  Yeah, whether or not we’re going to dedicate it to Vincent Price on our 
movie when they do the titles remains to be seen, but I’ve thought about it.  
I’ve even thought about dedicating it to Phil Hartman.  Since really his spirit 
follows through his movie.  It’s strange.  Once we started doing this movie 
and... we’re going to have lunch at this restaurant around the corner, that 
gives out fortune cookies.  And the messages from these fortune cookies, just to 
pick out one peculiar example, have been like messages to me.  You know, and 
like the 8 or 10 messages that I’ve had in the last year.  There have been so 
many signs along the way making this movie to me, and to Cassandra, and even to 
Sam Irvin the director, you feel like this is almost like become like fate.  It 
feels like there’s something bigger, and in some ways spiritual about it.  It 
really is a personal film.  I mean it really is one from the heart, and we... 
uh.  Movies get made for a multiple of reasons.  There’s just a multiple of 
people involved and everyone brings to it their own reason’s why they’re 
involved and so on.  We’ll see what happens to this film.  It’s taking on a life 
of it’s own, I’m finding now.  And now I feel like I’m in the service support of 
this movie.  I really don’t know where it’s going to lead to.  It’s difficult 
trying to sell it to studios.  They’re not getting it at first.  You find out 
that Five Media companies own all the home video companies, they own 
Blockbuster, they own all the television stations, all the cable television 
stations.  You have go to Sony... Sony, Tristar, you know, Tristar Columbia Home 
Video, Screen Gems, Sony Classics, all goes to one hand, one decision. You’re 
finding out at Disney, whether it’s Disney, ABC, you know, and their other 
channels, and Universal with USA and Sci-Fi.  If you’re not owned and controlled 
by them, they’re really not interested.  They’re completely vertically 
integrated now.  As you probably know about Wicked Magazine, that’s a Warner 
communication...  They own theatrical distribution, broadcast networks, cable 
networks, home video.  Universal is owning retail, owning Spencers and Spirit of 
Halloween.  Warner Brothers is owning Wicked Magazine.  You know, Rupert Murdoch 
is going out and buying, and setting up independent L.A. Weekly type of 
newspaper rags around the country to own that market and take that away from the 
independents.  So like... all the biggest independents have all been bought.  
You know, Rhino has been bought by Warner Brothers, and it’s, you know, it’s 
feast or famine.  If you don’t sell out and become owned by these people, 
they’ll totally exploit your picture, and do their account system, and not give 
you any money, which they do, except for the money you get up front, but you 
won’t get anything after that.  Say goodbye to your movie.  If you don’t do that 
then you’re out of the game.
 
Terry:  Nothing really changes.  I’ve heard the same thing from Sam Arkoff of 
American International Pictures back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
 
Mark:  Yeah, but there was an American International Pictures back then, you 
know?  The independent companies that exist today don’t really amount to much.  
And I’m sorry Lyon’s Gate, Artisan, I don’t know... They really don’t though 
because what is that game?  Where is that game for Artisan and Lyon’s Gate?  
They release your movie in New York, maybe New York and L.A., most likely two 
markets.  Maybe like the 10 or 30 markets and they’ll lose anywhere between 
$100,000 and maybe $5,000,000 marketing your movie to play in two or 10 markets 
for two weeks and they’ll want to take 25% of your movie, 25% - 30% of your 
movie, after they’ve recouped their, you know, their anywhere $100,000 - 
$2,000,000 typically lost marketing cost on your film.  They recoup that first, 
then they take 25%.  Where do they take it from?  Television and home video!  So 
going into this game, knowing that that’s what it is for ourselves, it’s like, 
well we don’t want to play that game.  We don’t want to sell our movie to the 
big studios.  We don’t want to go to these independents and have them lose money 
and just... I think we can just go around that.  So we’re going to the cable 
networks and so forth, and we’re thinking about direct marketing this ourselves. 
 In the mean time, and I’m still seeing what deals can be made, at least I have 
the luxury now to wait it out.
 
Terry:  Yeah.
 
Mark:  We were able to make this movie very economically in Romania, and I mean 
it’s what’s best for the movie.  So in the mean time I’m going out there and 
it’s going to play at Comic Con.  It’s going to play at Fangoria.  It’s going to 
play at Dragon Con.  It’s going to play at Fantasia in Montreal.  I’m getting 
out to the horror and sci-fi festivals and conventions.  Going out to gay and 
lesbian film festivals around the country and the world too because it’s a campy 
film.  We think this will become a Halloween classic and in the gay world 
Halloween is the biggest holiday of the year, bigger than Christmas or New Years 
or any holiday, so we know there is an audience there and it’s the story of my 
life.  Going around this demographic that makes $100,000 to $150,000 or more, or 
those college grads making $50,000 and driving beamers who will soon be in that 
$100,000 -$150,000 group or more.  That barrier!  These media companies that I 
keep banging my head against for years and years now, I’ve been going around 
them, and that’s why we’re still around.  All this time if I’d relied on 
Hollywood I would have starved to death a long time ago, but because Elvira is 
in so many things, you know, theme parks, personal appearances, film, 
television, radio, publishing, merchandising, internet, we’re able to keep 
going.  But it’s a very tough business being an independent, as I’m sure you’re 
magazine publications know.
 
Terry:  Yeah.
 
Mark:  Same thing, you know?  I talk to people who are in retail and they tell 
me how dreadful it is in retail, you know?  There’s like four names and they own 
all the retail whether it’s toys or whatever.  So, it’s feast or famine.  If you 
succeed it’s great.
 
Terry:  I can imagine that filming in Romania, you said was a lot cheaper.  How 
much more would the film had cost if you’d done it in Hollywood here?
 
Mark:  I think it would have been at least a $5,000,000 film if we’d made it 
here.  We’re calling it a million and a half dollar budget, so it would have 
been at least $5,000,000.  They built all those great sets for us for $80,000.  
The pit and the pendulum set which is 120 foot square by 60 foot tall.  I mean 
that’s like a James Bond portion set.  Same with that castle interior with the 
fireplace, spiral staircase, and dining room, and that torture chamber room with 
the lake in it.  They built all of that, and Elura’s bedroom.  Those were all 
the interior sets that were built for $80,000.
 
Terry:  What other movies have Media Pro done?  Are they mostly film production? 
 Are they all movies?  What all do they do over there?
 
Mark:  They’re just wrapping up film production again.  We were the second movie 
made there.  They’re making a Prostogrophis movie right now.  Zaphorelli is 
shooting his next movie there right now.  It was... the facilities themselves 
were built around 1950.  Kind of an Eva Peron story where the communist dictator 
at the time had an actress wife who was aspiring to be a film star, so he built 
this film studio on a lake in the suburb of Bucharest.  It’s very beautiful.  
Really, one of the prettiest sets of a film studio I’ve seen.  And you know, it 
was a communist made studio and it was... Actually Romania has a very rich 
history of film making.  And that famous... for example that famous shot that 
everyone calls the Hitchcock shot, that rack focus; Spielberg used it in “Jaws” 
and now it’s like a cliche shot, you know?  You know, where the camera pushes in 
and they widen out the lens at the same time that they’re tracking in so the 
background kind of does this sort of thing (shows with hands).  Remember Roy 
Schneider in the wheelchair or whatever in “Jaws”.  That was invented by a 
Romanian cinematographer that Hitchcock copied.  And they actually had a very 
rich film history, and then the fall of communism, and in 1990 the studio was 
just kind of abandoned, and now it was bought and it’s wrapping up again. 
They’re in television, they’re in lost of other media, but they’re wrapping up 
film.
 
Terry:  So you didn’t feel any restrictions being in a foreign country compared 
to being here?  I mean everything they done there was as good as they could’ve 
done here?
 
Mark:  Everything... they had weaknesses for sure, I mean they... but they 
overcame all of whatever they had.  Like, we had a dolly truck, you know, like 
probably from the 50s, I mean really!  And it’s not like the shotgun truck that 
you see here in Hollywood that costs $750,000 for this really special state of 
the art truck, you know, where you can mount a camera anywhere.  This was just 
like some old beat up truck that had a crane on it.  But you know, all those 
things... and we worked with the movie-cam camera.  All those things worked to 
our benefit though because we were going for that look of the 1960 movie.  So 
shooting in an Eastern Europe location, and these were the kind of films that 
they were used to making, these kind of sets, and shooting this way, so it all 
worked to our advantage.  The only area where I say they completely failed was 
prosthetics.  They have no prosthetics at all.  You know, they tried making 
these long arms for Elvira, which we ended up going with CGI once we got back 
here.  They just, you know, they just took like foam, you know, like shaping 
like styrofoam in hands, as opposed to like rubber that you pour in a cast.  We 
also... we thought at the beginning that we were going to be able to do some 
matting shots where, you know, they have like a sheet of glass on a easel, and 
literally paint the set around, which what they did back when they did “Pit and 
the Pendulum”.  That chamber that Vincent Price walks into, it’s just like... 
probably the set was like 20 by 20 foot, but they painted out the whole.... and 
the camera shoots right through the glass.  But when we got there we found out 
that that was a lost art and if we wanted to do matting we’d have to fly in a 
painter from London to do that.  So instead Media Pro builds us a real set, 120 
square!
 
Terry:  Wow!
 
Mark:  I mean they’re certainly capable of building sets and so they built us 
the real thing, so that was even better, really.
 
Terry:  Was there anything that went wrong on the set?  Any stories that you can 
talk about?  Funny things or maybe even accidents that put somebody in peril 
maybe for real?
 
Mark:  Uhhh, when Elvira and Richard O’Brien are struggling by the pit and the 
pendulum, fighting, when they were shooting one shot she was wearing her Ug 
boots because her feet weren’t being shot, and it was kind of slippery because 
they were on dirt, and she slipped and stabbed him with her knife and...
 
Terry:  Stabbed who?  Richard?
 
Mark:  Richard O’Brien.
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Mark:  Yeah and we had to like stop everything, you know?  Richard calmly walked 
off the set and sat on his chair off the set for about 10 - 15 minutes until he 
got his composure back.  And then he came back and they finished it.  Ummm, we 
were going to have prosthetic breasts for Elvira’s scene with the pendulum, but 
the prosthetics were so bad... this was a close up of Elvira’s chest, when the 
rope gets cut by the pendulum and she breaks free.  So she had to do that 
herself.  She had to do that herself under the pendulum and that was a bit 
wiggy, because it’s supposed to be secure but some things along the way during 
the production weren’t always secure or whatever and there was risk.  That was 
our operational pendulum and if that device came down it was 100 pounds and it 
could have crushed her.  And it did cut her a little bit.  It was made... the 
blade was made out of like a thin ply wood painted silver, but it was still 
sharp and it did cut her a little bit doing that scene.
 
Terry:  It looked real!
 
Mark:  Well I’m glad to hear you say that.
 
Terry:  Now Richard O’Brien plays Vladimir Hellsubus, correct?
 
Mark:  Right, but you know he wasn’t our first choice for the role.  First we 
were going to have Richard Chamberlain play Hellsubus, but he ended up having 
other commitments.  Then we were going to have Mick Jagger do the role, but at 
the last minute he called me up and told me his agent talked him out of it.
 
Terry:  I wanted to find out about the Elvira character.  In the first movie she 
portrayed herself as what I would call a witch.  Is she a witch or is she a 
vampire type character?  What is her character, or is it anything?  
 
Mark:  Uh, she’s not a witch.  She’s not a vampire.  One time we had a joke that 
the mother was... what was it?  Her mother was a sorceress and her father was a 
T.V. critic.  That was a joke that she had for years.  You know, being half 
mortal, being half something else, but I don’t think it’s ever really been 
clearly defined.
 
Terry:  Is there a reason for that?
 
Tiffany:  So she just kind of does magic when she wants to?
 
Mark:  Well, it’s... where’s the opportunity?  You know?  She started hosting 
horror movies on local television.
 
Terry:  Right.
 
Mark:  It’s just a couch and a black curtain.  You know, there’s no history.  
There’s no nothing.  She’s just there talking about the movies.  When we made 
the first movie in ‘87 / ‘88 and she was writing it, all those questions became 
real.  Ok, where you I come from?  Who am I?  And she went so far in what was 
necessary to service the plot of that story in that movie, and you know, that 
was that, and you like leave off.  Now why all of a sudden is she in 1851 
Carpathia?  You know?  How did she time travel?  You know, some things have to 
be answered in the context of that screen play or movie or whatever is necessary 
for that, and then you go on from there.
 
Terry:  When fans approach you, do they get technical like that?  Why does this 
happen?  Why does that happen?  Do they ask for explanations?
 
Mark:  No, no.
 
Terry:  Just me, right?  (Laughs).
 
Mark:  (Laughs).  Well maybe they ask Cassandra those questions, but not me, no.
 
Terry:  I wanted to ask you because I asked your husband.  Exactly how would you 
describe your character?  Now in your first movie you were kind of portrayed as 
a witch, but he said you actually weren’t a witch.  Some people says that you’re 
vampire type character.  What do you think?... I already have his opinion.
 
Cassandra:  Well, you know, I don’t know.  I set it up sort of in the first 
movie that my mother was a sorceress or had, you know, like one foot in magic 
somehow, but that my father was just a mortal so, I’m just like a, you know, I 
don’t know... kind of a conglomeration of... I think there’s a little witch, a 
little vampire, but, you know, I never really put my finger on it.  That way it 
leaves more open to the imagination, you know, I think... rather than saying she 
IS this or she IS that.  It might cut out some of my audience you know?  People 
who hate witches would like me because I was a vampire, visa versa, so, just 
leaving it sort of open to some corpus, magical...
 
Terry:  People’s interpretation...
 
Cassandra:  Interpretation is kind of good, so I never really had pin pointed 
it.
 
Terry:  How much of the real you is in the character?
 
Cassandra:  Um, people that know me really well say that there is actually a 
lot.  I... lately I started thinking that that is my personality as a teenager.  
That I was Elvira when I was a teenager and that’s my secret real personality 
that I learned to cover over later as I grew older, thank God!  Because I’d hate 
to walk around acting like that all day.  I actually think it is this other 
personality of mine that, you know, that I use.
 
Terry:  Now in real life you are a vegetarian, right?
 
Cassandra:  (Chuckles).  You know, I am, but I’ve fallen off the vegetarian 
wagon recently.  Hopefully I can get back on again soon.
 
Terry:  Because I wanted to ask you about the blood sausage scene in the movie.
 
Cassandra:  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  And if that was done with tofu or if it was done with real sausage?
 
Cassandra:  No, in Romania it was done... believe me, with sausage because 
nothing... You can’t get anything to eat there BUT sausage.
 
Mark:  You can’t find real tofu in Romania.
 
Cassandra:  No, Romania is very short on tofu.  There’s potatoes, cabbage and 
sausage, I think.  That’s it.
 
Mark:  It’s hard to get a good prosthetic arm or a descent tofu...
 
Cassandra:  So true!
 
Mark:  ...in Romania.
 
Cassandra:  Yes, if you’re trying to get a fake arm, don’t ask for one in 
Romania.  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  So do you feel being in Romania... he said that they did have a few 
constraints that couldn’t be done over there compared to America...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  Do you feel that it benefited the film by being over there in Romania as 
compared to Hollywood USA?
 
Cassandra:  Oh well it totally benefited in that if we didn’t have Romania we 
couldn’t have made it.  We couldn’t have made it here, the same film, with the 
kind of money.  So going to Romania was really one our, you know, our only 
choice.  I mean, with the money that we had in the budget.  And I mean, there 
was still benefits to being in Romania.  They had good technicians, and we got a 
lot... A LOT for our money, I’ll tell you. They worked very hard and had to get 
paid very little, which is awful, but there was no way we could’ve made our film 
here.
 
Terry:  Were any of the actors from Romania?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, yeah.  There were several actors that were from... um, the guy 
that plays the boyfriend, or the stable stud as we call him, and we dubbed his 
voice later.
 
Mark:  Adrienne Andronaki.
 
Cassandra:  Gabriel.  Adrienne was his character.
 
Mark:  Oh, Gabriel Andronaki.  
 
Cassandra:  Gabriel Andronaki, and he was great.  He was real good in it, and 
then some of the smaller roles; the maid, and the carriage master, and I don’t 
know, all the smaller roles were cast in Romania, and they all did a great job.  
They didn’t speak English unfortunately, but it didn’t really matter.  They did 
a great job.  They just had a few lines, so they were able to sound them out, 
you know, phonetically.
 
Terry:  You didn’t have any problems communicating with them then?
 
Cassandra:  No, not at all.  We had interpreters.  Most of the people on the 
crew spoke English really well, so not any problems.  They were all great.  They 
all did a fantastic job.
 
Terry:  Now the actor that portrayed Dr. Bradley Bradley...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah?
 
Terry:  I understand that he was involved with shows in Vegas and that?  Is that 
the one that I’m thinking of?
 
Cassandra:  No, no.  That is the guy who was at the very very end that picks us 
up in the coach.  He was... he is... was and is a Vegas choreographer... a 
director... musical director... costume designer.  He... I met him when I was 17 
years old and he was the choreographer in my first show “Viva Le Girls” in Las 
Vegas at the Dunes Hotel and we’ve been friends ever since.  And we... we wanted 
him... he did the musical number in my movie.  The little um... you know, dance 
number that I do?
 
Terry:  With the tassles?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah... no, well this time I didn’t do tassles actually.  Last time, 
the first time I did.  In the new movie, the little dance number.
 
Terry:  Oh you mean in the new movie.  Ok.
 
Cassandra:  And he wrote the song, and he wrote the lyrics, and he choreographed 
it for us.  So we really wanted him to come over to Romania and in order to 
bribe him... I don’t know if this was a bribe, I don’t know, or a threat.  
(Laughs).  It was either a threat or a bribe.  He begged him to come to... the 
director actually said, if you come and you help out with the choreography we’ll 
give you a part in the movie.  So he gave him this little part at the end, which 
he did really great, and really worked well because he’s a great guy and did a 
really good job.
 
Terry:  Did you’re whole family go with you on the shoot over in Romania?
 
Cassandra:  No.
 
Terry:  You basically spent Christmas holidays there didn’t you?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah we got back two days before Christmas, so no my family did not 
go with me, just Mark.
 
Terry:  Oh, that had to suck.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah it did suck.  I would never want to take my... Romania is not a 
place that I would have wanted to take my small daughter.  And of course my 
niece is in school, and my daughter is in school, and we would of had to pull 
them out from almost two months of school and it is tough.  It is tough over 
there.  It’s, you know, it’s bordering on third world time.  It’s really not a 
safe place for children and food... you know, food and water...
 
Terry:  I bet you had to get a lot of shots and everything too didn‘t you?
 
Cassandra:  You didn’t have to, no, no.
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Cassandra:  Because it’s in Europe, you really didn’t have to.  Some people did 
get shots, but I didn’t.  It’s not that bad, but it’d be tough for a small 
child, let me tell you... used to America, you know, and American standards.  I 
don’t see her eating sausage everyday for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you 
know?  I just don’t see it.  Right now, I mean, you can’t even get her to eat 
anything here.
 
Terry:  Did you have any problems with the local people, maybe with their 
superstitions, or maybe they just don’t like Hollywood people, or anything like 
that with the local people around there?
 
Cassandra:  Well, they were pretty anti-Dracula and that whole thing.
 
Terry:  That’s what I was thinking.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, every time you’d bring up Dracula, you know, say you were 
making this sort of vampire movie and immediately they’re all “Oh, you know, 
Vlad Tempest was really a great guy, and he just did that putting people on 
stakes thing because they had done so many atrocious things to them and so he 
was just getting retribution and he was really just a guy, and there’s no such 
thing as a vampire here.” and they get real panicked about...
 
Mark:  Well he was their national hero.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, he is like a hero.  They didn’t want it to be a bad...
 
Mark:  And they didn’t know about vampires really until the fall of the Iron 
Curtain.  You know, really... I mean, yeah, I guess there was Dracula’s castle 
and they did have tours of it before the fall of the Iron Curtain, but the 
people we talked to when we were there, none of them... it was all more recent.  
More recently did they found out about Dracula.
 
Cassandra:  Yep.
 
Mark:  All these English, you know, speaking people that were on our crew, I 
mean, they would be like the first people to know anything because they’re 
educated, they’re hip, very pro-western.  They looked at western culture.  They 
didn’t even show vampire movies in Romania until the last decade.
 
Terry:  Wow.
 
Mark:  You know, ten years ago, you couldn’t own a typewriter.  You couldn’t own 
a computer.  You couldn’t own a walky-talky.  They were doing film making, you 
know, they couldn’t have a walky-talky, couldn’t have a computer.  It’s amazing 
how they got things done.  All that’s only changed ten years ago.
 
Terry:  That’s what I was thinking, they’re probably, you know, pretty well 
still behind the times.
 
Cassandra:  They are.
 
Mark:  Oh yeah.
 
Cassandra:  I mean, going to Transylvania, there was areas that we were working 
in that honestly was like 500 years behind the times.  There are villages that 
have no, you know, no indoor plumbing or electricity and everywhere there you 
see oxen and horse link carts.  That’s their main mode of transportation.  I 
mean, it looked like, you know, 500 years ago.  I mean we had in the very 
beginning scene... I wish there was.. we would have gotten more shots of it so 
people could have seen it, we have... Elvira jump out of the window into the 
town street, you know, from the old inn and there’s all these peasants mulling 
around with herds of geese in front of them and herds of oxen and, you know, all 
dressed in this peasant...
 
Mark:  Flocks of geese, herds of oxen...
 
Cassandra:  Herds of geese did I say?  What did I say?  Flocks of oxen?  Did I 
say it the opposite way?
 
Becky:  Yeah.  (Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  Did I really?  Oh my God!  Yeah, idiot!  Ok!
 
Becky:  I think you said herds of oxen, herds of geese.
 
Cassandra:  Herds of geese!  (Laughs).
 
Mark:  I think you said herds for both.
 
Cassandra:  Ok, well that’s good.  That’s better than flocks of oxen.  Flocks of 
oxen!  And anyway, but all dressed up in this like, you know, medieval looking 
garb and stuff.  And people said, “Oh my God, you got such fantastic peasants 
and costumes and everything...” and I’d go “Those aren’t costumes honey, that 
was them!”  We got people off the street!
 
Mark:  They came dressed as they are.
 
Cassandra:  We got people off the street!  One would happen to have a flock of, 
you know...
 
Mark:   Well, off the dirt road.
 
Cassandra:  Off the dirt road, there’s no street!  I mean, like “Oh hey, want to 
be in a movie?”, “Oh yeah!” and they were so sweet and so nice, and happy and 
smiley, and they really enjoyed it!
 
Mark:  It’s really interesting because these villages... there’s really not much 
that’s different than 500 years ago.  They really are living in a whole other 
era... world.
 
Terry:  This is probably stupid question because I don’t imagine they have 
cable, ok, with being this behind the times, but I don’t imagine they knew who 
you were did they?
 
Cassandra:  Oh no, but they loved me, I’ll tell ya!  (Laughs).  They thought I 
was very interesting.  They all wanted their picture taken with me and 
everything and it was so funny.  Probably just because oh wow, she’s in a movie, 
you know, and she looks pretty weird, but they were so nice.  But, no they 
didn’t know who I was.  They... trust me, they didn’t know.  I don’t think 
they’d know who, you know, James Dean was.
 
Mark:  It was pretty exciting for a... we shot in this town Saschiz.  That’s 
where we shot the end scene for the beginning of the movie, in probably a 
village of  3, 4, 500 hundred people and all the structures were probably 2, 3, 
4, 500 years old.  There was a road that goes through it.  There’s maybe a 
little convenience store, that has electricity or something.
 
Cassandra:  When you say convenience store, you mean more like general store.
 
Mark:  I don’t even thing they could buy electricity.  I don’t think they had 
anything other than that of the modern world.
 
Terry:  Wow.
 
Mark:  It’s really another place in time.
 
Cassandra:  Like living in another time.  But in general I got the feeling in 
Transylvania they’d rather forget the whole Dracula thing than capitalize on it. 
 I think it would be good for their tourism, but they don’t really look at it 
that way.  They think it’s a negative...
 
Terry:  Like us with O.J.
 
Cassandra:  Yes, yes.  (Laughs).  I’d never thought of that.  It’s true!  Yeah!
 
Terry:  I can imagine being in that setting, that probably helped you as an 
actress too because you probably felt like you were in a movie within a movie.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, you did, you did.  It was so bizarre.
 
Terry:  Because even when you stop, it’s still there.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, that’s true.  True.
 
Terry:  Did you bring over your own food or did you eat all the food there?
 
Cassandra:  No, we ate the food there.  Which, you know, I went over in the 
summer time to scout locations, and at that time... and I mean, Romanian food is 
very good.  It’s really great, and at that time in the summer, we were traveling 
all around the different cities and we were having some incredible meals.  But 
then there were fresh vegetables and there were tomatoes, and then we’re there 
in the winter and there’s the vegetables you grow in the winter, you know?  I 
mean, there was basically really like potatoes and cabbage mostly, and you know 
these little sausages and stuff.  I mean, ugh!  No salads or fresh food, you 
know, or fruits or, I mean, ugh!  It was brutal!  And it’s like... it’s not that 
they don’t have it.  If you went to an expensive restaurant in Bucharest, I’m 
sure you could get anything you wanted.  But, it’s just that we were not near an 
expensive restaurant in Bucharest!  We were at like this place way the heck out 
in no where that had a very limited menu and oh God!  And then we were at the 
studio that had an even more limited menu, you know?  And it was just like the 
same food, and ugh!  It was brutal!
 
Terry:  I hope nobody got sick.
 
Cassandra:  No one did get sick.  I was sick the whole time, but not on the 
food.  I was sick with like a respiratory thing the whole time.
 
Terry:  Oh, ok.
 
Cassandra:  But, no one got sick from the food, no.  A lot of people brought... 
were smart and they brought like energy bars and... I basically existed.. ended 
up living on Coca-Cola and Snickers bars because (Laughs) like after a while I 
couldn’t stand any other foods so I was... they did have Coca-Cola there and 
they did have Snickers bars...
 
Terry:  See that, she has a baby, retains her figure, and eats junk food too!
 
Tiffany:  Yeah, I know!
 
Cassandra:  I never eat that stuff.  I really really don’t.  There I was 
hostage.
 
Terry:  How did you get involved with Sam Irvin.
 
Cassandra:  Well I knew Sam from a long time ago.  How did we meet Sam?  What 
was that?
 
Mark:  We met him through Terry Sweeney in ‘89, ‘88 / ‘89, right after he made 
the first Elvira movie, and right after he made “Guilty as Charged”,
 
Terry:  Which I love.
 
Cassandra:  I love that movie!  I don’t know why it never was anywhere.  It’s 
just a brilliant movie.  I just saw it again.  I think it’s great.
 
Mark:  It holds up to this day.
 
Cassandra:  It does.
 
Mark:  And I think we’re going to be lucky.  Sam had Steve Bartec do the score 
on that movie and I think Steve Bartec is going to be doing the score of our 
movie this summer.  He’s indicated that he wants to, and we’re talking...
 
Cassandra:  They probably don’t know who Steve Bartec is...
 
Mark:  He’s Danny Elfman’s orchestrator.  He’s orchestrated every Danny Elfman 
score to this day.  Danny doesn’t read and write music, and Steve does.
 
Terry:  You’ll probably actually release the soundtrack album too right, or CD?
 
Mark:  Yeah we will.
 
Cassandra:  Maybe.
 
Mark:  We hope to.  We should say we will.  We will do, will do.  We’ll see how 
things work out.  So they just made their movies and we were at a movie at Terry 
Sweeney’s in Beverly Hills and that’s when Sam came up and said “I love you”...
 
Cassandra:  ...So I met him and “I love you”, “I love you”.  We had a mutual fan 
club, and then years went by and at the last minute, we were... John Paragon was 
going to direct and then he got a deal on another project.  And then we called 
our brother-in-law who just directed the “Anne Frank Story” which is on tonight 
again right?
 
Terry:  It was on last night.
 
Cassandra:  It was brilliant.  Did you guys see it?  It was last night and 
tonight.
 
Mark:  Last night and tonight.  It’s a two night movie.
 
Cassandra:  It was fantastic.  You should see it.  You should see it tonight, 
the second... even if you only come in in the middle of the movie.
 
Mark:  Well the second part is a totally different movie, you know?  They go to 
the concentration camp tonight, so it’s going to be pretty...
 
Cassandra:  I know.  I know.  I talked to Robert today.  I called him.  He’s in 
Chicago.  But he said tonight’s the really good night, but it’s also good, bad, 
good.  Anyway he was going to direct it and so he flew to Romania with me to 
scout locations.  Now he’s Romanian...
 
Terry:  Oh, really?  Wow.
 
Cassandra:  So it’s amazing.  Yeah, we had a Romanian brother-in-law.  We 
wouldn’t have known about anything... I mean, I don’t think we could have gotten 
this together without his help, absolutely.  So he was going to direct at that 
point, and then he got the Anne Frank Project, and at the last minute we were 
really like scrambling like “Oh my God, what are we going to do?” and we called 
Sam and Sam was available.  It was a miracle!  And Sam turned out to be so 
perfect!  I mean, so great!  Because he’s really into that genre!  I... you 
know, when I heard...
 
Terry:  Well, he’s made several B-movies too...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, yeah.  Yeah, he’s knows how to work fast and cheap, you know?  
And he was invaluable.  And he had the same sensibilities, so when he was... 
when he told me as a kid in junior high he recited a scene of Vincent Price’s 
from the “Pit and the Pendulum” I said, “This is our guy!”, you know?  Because 
he really knows those movies.
 
Terry:  Well I appreciate the fact that it’s kind of in homage to Vincent Price 
because I understand he had a situation where he also heard from Vincent.  He 
got letters of encouragement from him?
 
Cassandra:   Yeah, yeah.
 
Mark:  (Into the microphone)  They are serving the food right now!  (Laughs).  
(Assorted sounds).  That was the sound of pepper grinding.
 
Terry:  Your husband actually has a part in the movie right?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.  (With food in her mouth.)
 
Terry:  Now this is the fun part.  We get to talk with food in our mouth.  
(Laugh).
 
Becky:  It’s ok.  They’ll know we’re having a good time.
 
Cassandra:  He had a part in the last movie too, but he got cut out.  (Laughs).
 
Mark:  Yeah.
 
Becky:  On the cutting room floor huh Mark?
 
Terry:  How does that happen?  You’re married to the star!  (Laughs).
 
Mark:  I’ve been practicing for 13 years so this time I got to stay in.  No this 
time my producers...
 
Terry:  Well make it your own film, like you did, and that way...
 
Cassandra:  We had to have him in.  We couldn’t afford any more actors so, you 
know, he had to be in the film.
 
Terry:  Let me ask you this, I asked your husband.  In actually doing your own 
thing, and I know you’re an Ed Wood fan, does this make you appreciate Ed Wood 
even more by actually going out there and almost being like him?  Of course, the 
movie is a higher caliber then Ed Wood but...
 
Cassandra:  Yes of course, oh for God’s sake, anything is higher caliber than Ed 
Wood.  (Laughs).  It makes me appreciate small film, you know, in general.  
People who make films on their own and had small budgets.  It’s like, man, the 
odds are against you.  I mean, sure, making “Titanic” is easy, you have all the 
money in the world!  But, you know, honestly, when you have all the money... not 
that making those films are easy, but when you have all the money in the world 
and they’re just coming in and you can do anything you want and get this made 
and get that, that’s one thing.  But when you’re just scrounging and trying to 
do your best, I mean, I really have a new appreciation for anybody that does an 
independent film.  It’s tough man.  It’s really tough.  You’re selling your 
house to get the money to pay for a coach and four white horses.
 
Terry:  Let me ask you a question, if you were from a long time ago, and Ed Wood 
would’ve asked you to be in one of his movies, would you have done it?
 
Cassandra:  Oh, sure, I would.  
 
Terry:  You think so?
 
Cassandra:  He’s my kind of guy.  That kind of... transvestite.  Any guy who 
directs in high heels...
 
Mark:  Ummmmm...
 
Cassandra:  What, don’t think that’s a good idea?
 
Terry:  Got something to say Mark?
 
Mark:  We’ve turned down guys who’ve offered B-movie cameo appearances 
throughout the years.
 
Terry:  That’s what I thought...
 
Mark:  As a rule we don’t do them because we save Elvira for our ventures or if 
it’s a... well even if it was a legitimate Hollywood project, there’s been a few 
of those over the years, you know, a big budget Hollywood movie, “Can Elvira do 
a cameo scene”? And we’ve turned a few of those down because we’ve felt like 
we’re always trying to sell our own Elvira movie and, you know, we wanted to 
save her for that and...
 
Cassandra:  Well I think I was thinking of it...
 
Mark:  We were also kind of guarded too about, you know, having her do low 
budget, you know...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, but I was thinking about it a different way. If like, knowing 
who Ed is and being in it, and like, you know, Vampira was in the movie and so 
it becomes a classic and you become famous for having done this horrible movie, 
you know, so... It’s hard to say.  Knowing who Ed Wood is now and having done 
it?  Sure, of course.  At the time?  Depends how broke I was, you know?  And 
being offered a movie.  I mean, I’m thinking in a different direction.  No, now 
when we are offered a lot of like, you know, really really low budget, “Oh can 
you be in this movie as Elvira or Cassandra?”, usually we don’t.
 
Terry:  Well you have to be careful about people exploiting you too  because 
like for instance, the movie you did “Working Girls”...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  Where you did the dance scene...
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah...
 
Terry:  Everybody’s just pumping it up “Elvira... da da da.”
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, I know.  It’s like “hello?!?”  
 
Terry:  How do you feel about that?
 
Cassandra:  Well I don’t like it because it’s not Elvira.
 
Terry:  Yeah.
 
Cassandra:  If they said Cassandra Peterson, I don’t care.  I mean it’s not 
something I think was wow, fabulous, gee I hope everybody sees this movie... 
(Chuckles).
 
Terry:  Because at home I’ve got a film that I bought at a store and it’s got 
Elvira on the cover, full frontal cover photo, and it says Elvira on the box.  I 
brought it home and you’re not even in the film, and it’s a porno film.  You’re 
not even in it.
 
Cassandra:  Oh well that’s nice...
 
Terry:  I don’t know if you know about this...
 
Cassandra:  No!  God help me!
 
Becky:  Yep, it’s got the name, you on the cover...
 
Terry:  Well I bought it thinking it was an Elvira film.
 
 
Cassandra:  Oh my God!
 
Terry:  It’s a strange little thing.
 
Cassandra:  Good God!
 
Terry:  Do you have a lot of this happen?
 
Mark:  No, I’ve never heard about this.
 
Cassandra:  No.
 
Becky:  Oh yeah...
 
Terry:  I don’t know if the company is still around, but I could let you know 
about that.  Let me ask you this, whenever your wife has love scenes, how do you 
handle that?  Do you get jealous?
 
Mark:  No.
 
Cassandra:  I don’t have too many, thank God.  I mean, thank God for him, not 
me!
 
Terry:  Because you guys have been together so long, what do you attribute being 
together like this for all this time?  Because most people don’t make it?  You 
guys have been together how many years?
 
Mark:  22.
 
Terry:  22.  So what is it that keeps you guys together?
 
Cassandra:  Well.  (Chuckles).  I don’t know honey, what is it?  (Laughs).
 
Mark:  I don’t know.  (Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  I don’t know.  Neither of us know the answer to that question.
 
Terry:  Well I guess it’s a dual sense of humor.
 
Cassandra:  Well...
 
Becky:  Well ask them when they’ve been married 25 years.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, call back!
 
Terry:  Let me ask you this, has there ever been any times when you’ve been 
involved in projects where you’ve just totally disagreed with each other?
 
Cassandra:  Well, we totally disagree about everything everyday...
 
Mark:  Once in a while.
 
Cassandra:  But project wise, no, we pretty much...
 
Terry:  And how do you resolve it?
 
Cassandra:  Well, unless we both agree on a project, we don’t do it really.  But 
we usually do, we usually do.  We start to think a like, after being together so 
many years, as I’m sure you know, you start thinking a like.
 
Terry:  Yeah well that’s true, thinking a like, and looking a like.
 
Cassandra:  We argue more about the details, you know, not the big things.
 
Becky:  (To Terry) You’re looking at me when you say that.  Do we look a like 
now?
 
Cassandra:  I know!  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  Now let me ask you now, you mentioned Vampira.  I understand of course, 
I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about the lawsuit thing, but after that all 
occurred, did you and her ever have any conversations?  Did she ever say 
anything to you?
 
Cassandra:  Nope.  Never saw her, heard from her, spoke to her, nothing, ever.
 
Terry:  Wow.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.  No, that was that.  The last time I heard anything about it 
was at the end of the Ed Wood movie.  You know um... what’s the name of it?  Ed 
Wood!
 
Terry:  Ed Wood.
 
Cassandra:  Ed Wood, hey, there you go!
 
Terry:  For the role of Vampira in “Ed Wood”, what if someone had approached you 
about playing her?  What would you have said?  That would’ve been a bad thing 
right?
 
Cassandra:  Um, yeah, it would’ve been a bad thing in fact, and you know, 
also... not that anyone asked me but people kept saying “Oh you should play 
Morticia in the ‘Adams Family Remakes.’”, and you know.  But even if I were 
asked, I wouldn’t want to do it because it’s too similar to the Elvira 
character, but not the Elvira character.  I mean, if it was something completely 
different, then there would be no problem, but so close, but not Elvira.  I 
wouldn’t want to do that.  That would be like compromising my character, so no, 
unfortunately I wouldn’t do that.
 
Terry:  When you first...
 
Cassandra:  Unless they offered me like a zillion dollars!
 
Terry:  Well, money talks!
 
Cassandra:  Yeah!
 
Terry:  When you first created the character with the local T.V. station in 
L.A., did you always retain the rights to the character, or did you have to go 
through something with the T.V. station to get the rights back when you went off 
on your own.
 
Cassandra:  You tell them that Marky.  Let Mark tell you that.
 
Mark:  Well the show started in September of 1981.  By ‘86 we had the rights to 
the character.  We re-negotiated our contract each year; year to year because 
KHJ at that time only had a license year to year.  Their license was under 
review by the FCC because back in 1972 RKO Neuro made illegal contributions to 
the Nixon re-election campaign.  They would buy ad time on RKO stations as a 
kick back and it was a no no, and eventually RKO General had to split up to 
General Tires by itself.  RKO lost its television stations in New York, Boston, 
L.A. ... lost their radio stations.  KHJ became KCAL; Disney.  It’s since been 
sold by Disney.  Now it’s Young Broadcasting, but the point being is that 
because of this event that took place back in 1972, when Elvira started, her 
show was the most profitable show on the station.  It was more profitable than 
the Lakers because it cost no money to make.  It got huge ratings.  It was 
their... it was a cash gouge for them.  It was making them millions of dollars 
each year and they would have re-negotiate each year, so we kept saying let us 
do a fan club, let us do merchandising, let us do appearances...
 
Cassandra:  Because I was not making millions of dollars each year...
 
Mark:  No, she was just being paid AFTRA minimum...
 
Cassandra:  ...scale!
 
Mark:  And let us do merchandising, let us do this, let us do that, and over the 
four years of re-negotiation we obtained all rights to the character.
 
Beckie:  So was it a character that you originally created and went to them with 
this, or was it something that they were looking for, and you auditioned for?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah. They were looking for a horror host, or hostess, to replace 
Seymour the horror host here for years.  And he had died, so they were going to 
do another horror host.  So they had put ads in the papers everywhere and had 
seen a million people and hadn’t really liked anyone and then a friend of mine 
called and said, “They want a horror host and I know the guy who is going to 
direct the show and he’d like some comedian woman who does comedy who looks sexy 
and stuff and you’d be perfect for me.”  And he came down and saw me at the 
Groundlings.... I was in the Groundlings Comedy Review... and he really liked 
this character, and this sort of thing that I was doing which was kind of a 
valley girl, stupid, dumb blonde, sort of valley girl.. and um, actress, you 
know type.  And he really liked that character and he had me audition and I did 
it as myself and then they gave me the part and they said, “You have to come up 
with a look...” and my best friend...
 
Terry:  Yourself?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, they said that, “You have to come up with a costume because 
you have to look scary, you know, it’s horror movies!”
 
Terry:  How nice of them!  Here it is, do it!
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.  Do it!  Snap up with something!  And so a friend of mine 
designed the whole look; the hairdo, and the make-up, and the dress.  And you 
know, I said, “Oh my God!  I can’t wear that on T.V.”  and he said, “Well, just 
show them.”  I remember showing them this sketch that he had drawn and they go, 
“Oh, could you make the slit a little higher on the leg?!”  You know, it was 
like, “Ok, guess it’s no problem.”  And so I went on and did the show and so... 
we came up with the name, the name Elvira by literally... We didn’t have a name 
the day we were going to shoot.  Everybody put what they thought would be the 
best name... everybody meaning like the crew that was around, put what they 
thought would be the best name in a can and we.. I drew it out and it was 
Elvira.
 
Terry:  Do you recall what some of the other names were by chance?
 
Cassandra:  I only remember mine.  I wanted it to be Cassandra.  Oooh, big 
mistake.  Boy, that would have been such a mess.  (Laughs).  Because imagine, my 
name is Cassandra, and my character’s name would have been Cassandra, and we 
look completely different.  Thank God I didn’t pick my name out!
 
Terry:  Do you get irritated when people come up to you and call you Elvira?
 
Cassandra:  No, I’m used to it?
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Cassandra:  I’m used it by now.  I’m like, yeah?
 
Terry:  So when you did this, would you say that you were a horror fan?
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah, very much so.  I’ve always been, since I was a kid.  I 
mean, when I was a little kid the Vincent Price movie... that series of movies, 
“Pit and the Pendulum” and “Tomb of Lygeria” and all those were like my favorite 
movies.  Plus I was very much into T.V.  I was into the “Twilight Zone”, “Alfred 
Hitchcock”... I mean, that’s all the stuff I grew up with, you know?  I was a 
big fan of that.  The other day, I was actually telling someone, I was the only 
little girl I knew... who while other little girls were collecting Barbies, I 
collected the Rovel Model Kits of the mummy, Frankenstein, and Dracula...
 
Beckie:  We have those!
 
Cassandra:  Do you really?  God, I wish I still had mine!  My mother got rid of 
everything I had...
 
Beckie:  He still has them!  He still has those.  No, he has the plastic model 
sets and they’re not even painted.  They’re from that long.
 
Cassandra:  Girls weren’t doing that.  That was kind of a boy thing.  So, I was 
way into it.
 
Terry:  I don’t remember which came out first, whether it was you or whether it 
was this one... do you remember the character Vampirella?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmmm.
 
Terry:  Do you think that that has any resemblances to Elvira?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, people do, it’s... it was a character...
 
Mark:  Vampirella predates Elvira... doesn’t it?  Yeah.
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.  I didn’t know about Vampirella at the time, but um, you 
know, I wanted my character to embody all of that you know?  I mean a female... 
I mean, what’s a female going to look like that’s going to look like it’s going 
to be scary?  You know what I mean?  They said one thing, they go, “You have to 
have black hair!”  I’m going, “Black hair?  No, no!  I’m not going to dye my 
hair!”  and you know, my friend said, “Don’t freak out, we’ll make a wig.  We’ll 
get a wig.” and he did the big high hairdo because he was in love with the 
Ronettes from the 60s...
 
Terry:  Oh really?
 
Cassandra:  He said, “I’m going to give a Ronette hairdo... a Ronnie Spector 
hairdo.”  I’m like, “Oh great.  It’s called a knowledge bump!”  That hairdo was 
actually called a knowledge bump.  And that’s the hair he did.  And he got the 
make-up out of a Kabuki make-up book that he had, a Kabuki Theatre make-up book 
and we did the make-up like Kabuki.  And then the dress he just tried to make as 
tight and sexy as he could possibly do it, and black.
 
Terry:  Do you think being a former showgirl helped?
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah, I think so.  I don’t know in what ways, but I think it 
helped somehow.
 
Beckie:  What got you into being a showgirl?  You started when you were 17?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.
 
Terry:  What did your mom think of you taking off like that?  How did that 
happen?
 
Beckie:  What did your mom... was it just like a spur of the moment “I’m leaving 
to go to college...” and ended up in Vegas?
 
Cassandra:  No, I had a dream to be a showgirl in Vegas.  From the time I was 14 
and saw “Viva Las Vegas” with Elvis Presley and Anne Margaret, I got fixated on 
the movie.  I mean fixated!  Really.  I went to it and I just wanted it to be my 
life.  I just wanted to become that.  And I started telling everybody, “I’m 
going to go to Vegas and I’m going to be a showgirl.  That’s what I’m going to 
do.  That’s my dream, you know?”  And so that was when I was about 14 and then 
when I was about 16 my parents... I went with my parents on vacation, and my 
sisters to L.A. and we were driving from Colorado to L.A. and we stopped in 
Vegas like we always did every year.  And I was getting pretty mature looking by 
that point.  I was very busty and had big red hair with, you know, wiglets stuck 
in my hair and everything.  And they said... I begged my parents to one of the 
shows there.  One of the big, you know, glamour, feather type, showgirl shows.  
My parents said, “Well dress up and put on a ton of make-up so you look like the 
right age, and we’ll take you.”
 
Beckie:  So see you can do it.  I’ve tried doing it with her...
 
Cassandra:  No..
 
Tiffany:  Yeah well now they require I.D.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, they probably do.  Then they didn’t even think about it.  So I 
dressed up, I had my push-up bra and tons of make-up and eyelashes and 
everything so I looked like a, you know, show girl and we went in and we sat 
down in the booth, way back... the last, like in the back actually.  And the 
Maitre D walked over to the table, he stares at me, and he goes, “Are you in one 
of the shows?”  And I go, “Oh, no, no, no no...” You know, like, “Oh God, don’t 
talk to me, I don’t want to get thrown out!” and I was even there having a glass 
of champagne.  My parents let me have my first glass of champagne in front of 
them.  They didn’t know when they weren’t around I was like chugging it so... 
(Laughs).  No, usually not champagne, more like ripple or something.  So the 
Maitre D said, “Oh, you know tonight is the last night of the show, they‘re 
closing, and they are auditioning...”...well no, not that show.  Tonight is the 
last show of the show next door.  It was in the same hotel, but a different 
show.  “...and they’re closing, and they’re going to be auditioning for a 
different show tomorrow.”  And I go, “Oh, very interesting!  Oooh?”  (Laughs).  
And he said, “You should try out.  You know, you look like a show girl.  You 
should try out.”  and I’m going, “but...“ and I was sitting there and I couldn’t 
believe it.  Well like five minutes later comes this woman, a Frenchman, and she 
goes, “Hello, my name is Fluff.”  (Laughs).  Her name was really Fluff.  And she 
said, “Why don’t you come back stage with me?”  I’m like, “Uh, what for? What 
for?”  And she said, “Oh, come back stage.  I want to introduce you to the stage 
manager and some people backstage.”  I’m like, oh my God, oh my God!  So she 
takes me.  My parents are both freaking out.  They think they’re going to get 
busted, you know, for bringing a minor into a casino.  And I go back there and 
they said, “Have you ever danced before?”  and I said, “Yes, I am a dancer, 
that’s what I do.”  I was a go-go girl, and also I’d taken dance since I was 
a... oh God... three years old I think I started my first dance class.  And they 
said, “Why don’t you... We’ll put on a record, and can you just dance to it for 
us?  Just, you know, move.  You don’t have to do anything formal, just dance.  
We want to see how you move.”  And I did, and then they said, “Can you meet with 
the producer in the morning of the show.”  And I’m going... I like break down 
and started crying.  I said, “I can’t.  I can’t.”... because you didn’t know 
this story would be an hour and a half long, sorry... I said, “I’m only 17.  I’m 
not supposed to be here, blah blah...”  And they go, “Calm down, calm down.  
It’s ok.  We won’t tell anybody, but if your parents sign a release form, you 
can be in the show.”  They said, “You can’t come in the casino, but you can come 
in the back door and be in the show.”  And I’m like, “You’re kidding!”  So I go 
to the producer the next day.  The producer hires me, says I can be in the show. 
 My parents said, “No way in hell.” and they drag me back to Colorado... and we 
went on our vacation in California and back to Colorado.  And I put my parents 
through three months of living  hell and then finally they signed the form, they 
signed the release.  And the people from Vegas kept calling...
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Cassandra:  They kept calling me, yeah.  They kept talking to my parents, and 
talking to me.  And they said, “We really want you in the show.”  And next thing 
I know I was graduated from high school and I like just got a car and...
 
Terry:  Just split...
 
Cassandra:  Just drove straight to Vegas.  My aunt went with me to drive there 
so I wouldn’t have to drive by myself and I got an apartment with a girlfriend 
from Colorado also, and started rehearsals right then, you  know, when I was 
17...
 
Beckie:  Wow.
 
Tiffany:  Why can’t it be that easy?
 
Cassandra:  I know. It sounds easy...
 
Beckie:  It wasn’t, it was three months of hell!
 
Cassandra:  It was.  My parents aged 50 years.
 
Beckie:  It was going out there and bringing her back home... listening to her 
cry!
 
Cassandra:  I know!
 
Terry:  When the first movie came out, I understand  you got  a Razzie award.  I 
understand they called you the worst actress.  What did you think about that?
 
Cassandra:  I loved that.  I think it’s flattering.  (Laughs).  I thought it was 
good.  Any award...
 
Terry:  Well that’s a compliment for a B-movie isn’t it?
 
Cassandra:  It is, it is.  It’s like, that was my goal.  I don’t know...
 
Mark:  I didn’t know she got a Razzie award for that.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah I knew that.
 
Terry:  Well it’s a nomination actually.
 
Mark:  Nomination...
 
Terry:  According to the internet and what I read...
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.
 
Terry:  It said she was nominated for worst actress for the first movie 
“Mistress of the Dark”.
 
Cassandra:  And I don’t take it personally because I’m playing a character and 
the character is supposed to be kind of dorky and bad, so it’s not like, “Oh, 
I’m a terrible actress.”  I really didn’t take it that way.
 
Terry:  What do you tell your daughter about what you do?  Does she understand 
what you do?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, I think she totally understands it.
 
Terry:  I don’t know how old she is...
 
Cassandra:  She’s 6.  I think she totally gets it.  To her that’s just a part of 
life.  That’s what mommy does, you know?  I mean, it’s a normal thing.  I mean, 
the funniest thing she’s ever said to me about... well a couple of things she 
said... she sees my nails around Halloween and I start painting my nails black 
and came in and goes, “Uh oh mommy, your nails turned black.  You’re starting to 
turn into Elvira!”  (Laughs).  Like it’s some weird transformation that happens 
every... and uh, she said to Mark the other day, “When mommy dies, can I be 
Elvira?”
 
Terry:  That’s what I was wondering, if you think she’s going to be Elvira 
someday?  Like maybe when you’re 80 or whatever?
 
Cassandra:  I don’t know.  Who knows.  I’d rather she have some little... more 
stable job, but right now she wants to be either Elvira or a paleontologist, so 
one of those, you know?
 
Terry:  Boy, what a wide and vast, you know, area there.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  So how often did John Paragon complain about having Vaseline on his face 
when playing Breather?
 
Cassandra:  (Laughs).  Oh, never.
 
Terry:  Never?
 
Cassandra:  I think he liked it.  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  How did you..
 
Cassandra:  You know what he actually used?  He used KY Jelly.
 
Terry:  Oh really?  Ok.
 
Cassandra:  Yep.  A little secret there.  Now what?
 
Terry:  When did you meet John?
 
Cassandra:  Um, in the Groundlings... even before I met him (Mark).
 
Terry:  Ok, that’s right, yeah.
 
Cassandra:  He was in the Groundlings and he was like the star of the 
Groundlings.  When I met him, I was like, “I want to know this guy!”  He’s just 
so brilliant.
Terry:  I was telling your husband, I think he’s fantastic.  I’m just so 
surprised he’s not, you know, further up...
 
Cassandra:  We are too.  Everybody is.  It’s weird.  I don’t know why.
 
Terry:  And you’ve written several books with John too haven’t you?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, books and... John’s written songs for me.  He’s a good 
musician and singer.  And he’s written songs, we’ve wrote books together, 
scripts, T.V. shows, comic books, everything...
 
Terry:  “Bad Dog Andy”, that’s a childrens book?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmmhmm.  Well, not really.  It’s a kids book, but it was about his 
dog Andy.  And I had rotwielers.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen “Good Dog 
Carl”.  Have you ever seen that?
 
Terry:  No.
 
Cassandra:  It’s about a rotwieler who takes care of the baby and take care of 
the house while the people are away and his dog was so bad that he wrote “Bad 
Dog Andy” about a dog that destroys the house and sets it on fire and every 
thing while the people are away.  It was a take off on another book.
 
Terry:  Something else that I read on the internet, that I don’t know if it was 
true or not.  It said that when you were a child that you were burned?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.
 
Terry:  Can you tell us about that?
 
Cassandra:  Mmm mmm mmmm.
 
Terry:  Pause for chewing!
 
Cassandra:  Pause for chewing!  I was about... I was two years old, about three, 
and we lived on a farm in Kansas and I... my mom was dying Easter eggs and I 
crawled up on this chair to look at the eggs boiling in this big giant kettle 
and I started to fall off the chair and pulled kettle of boiling water on top of 
me.  And so, I have 35% of my body is skin grafting.
 
Terry:  Wow.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.  Luckily all the parts that don’t show with Elvira.  You know, 
it was pretty traumatic.  I almost didn’t survive.
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Cassandra:  35% of your body, back in those days... I hate to tell you how long 
ago... it was not very good chances of survival because of the infection, you 
know, afterwards.
 
Terry:  Well I have to ask you about Knott’s because I have to do something 
about the free tickets they gave us to your last show.  If I don’t mention it 
they’ll kill me...
 
Cassandra:  No, I mean, that’s good...
 
Terry:  How did you get involved with Knott’s?
 
Cassandra:  I don’t know.  They called us I guess?
 
Mark:  They called us, I think, in 1982, the first year that she was there.
 
Cassandra:  I think they wanted to replace Wolfman Jack.
 
Mark:  Mmmm, he wasn’t there the year before, but yeah he was their last big 
star maybe a few years before.  They hadn’t had a celebrity host at their haunt 
to do a show at their “Goodtime Theatre”... They’ve renamed it now, I think it’s 
the “Toyota Theatre”.  Ummm, so they contacted us, and that’s where it started.
 
Terry:  How much operation goes into that?  When will you start getting it put 
together?
 
Cassandra:  We already started.
 
Terry:  Already started?
 
Cassandra:  Right.  I’ve had two meetings, and I’m having another one tomorrow.
 
Terry:  It’s your own dancers and everything?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, we have a choreographer and generally he chooses the dancers.  
I go to some of the screenings... I mean auditions.  Screenings, ha!  Auditions, 
and we choose dancers and singers.  First we write it and get the ideas going, 
and chose the songs, and get the costumes made.  It’s a big production.  It’s a 
very big production...
 
Terry:  Oh we’ve seen it.  We loved it.  We were the ones that were screaming 
really loud.  You remember us don’t you?
 
Beckie:  I didn’t see it unfortunately!
 
Cassandra:  You didn’t get a chance to see it?  
 
Beckie:  I wasn’t able to be there.
 
Cassandra:  Well I hope you can see it this year.  It’s fun.
 
Beckie:  I’m going to try.  I’m going to try.  I’m going... goodbye.
 
Tiffany:  We’ll be there.
 
Terry:  I’ll hit them up for some more cheap tickets.  Writers are cheap!
 
Cassandra:  No, that’s good.
 
Terry:  I noticed that at the end of one of the shows, as the platform was going 
back you lost your balance a little bit and one of your dancers held you up.
 
Tiffany:  The dancers were holding you...
 
Terry:  Of course you’ve got the heels and everything.  Has there ever been any 
accidents?
 
Cassandra:  Umm...did we have any...
 
Mark:  You had the accident where the curtain hit you in the face.
 
Cassandra:  Mmmm!  Last year, I don’t know... did you notice that there was a 
big tapestry of Elvira in front of me and it’s canvas but they pull it up right 
before I appear.  There’s a poof of smoke and the tapestry whips up and then I’m 
there.  And I walk out and the tapestry whips up and whip... and hit me in the 
face.  I mean, so hard...
 
Terry:  Ooooh.
 
Cassandra:  You know, like have you ever been snapped in the... snapped with a 
towel.  This is a big heavy canvas thing and it snapped me like that straight in 
the nose, right in the face.  I felt like my nose was bleeding.  You know, I 
felt like my nose was broken!  It hurt so bad!  The poof of smoke subsides and 
I’m standing on stage going “My God!” and the dancers grab my arms and pull me 
down to the front, and I’m going “Oh no, don‘t, stop!”  (Laughs).  And they pull 
me clear to the front of the stage, and then I just walk off, and the audience 
is like, “What is up with that?”  But I was ok.  I had to just catch my breath.  
It felt like being hit in the straight face, you know?  I hardly knew where I 
was for a second, then I was ok and we went back on and did the show.  But what 
a great start to a show!  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  We were a little confused with the film that you were showing which I 
guess was your CBS pilot Elvira show.  I hadn’t heard of that.  I guess that 
never made it to air or?
 
Mark:  That’s right.
 
Terry:  How did that come about?
 
Mark:  We made it in ‘93 with Twentieth Century Television, it’s a Fox Company, 
for CBS and we made the pilot and it just didn’t get picked up, which normally 
they... You know, more shows that get a pilot don’t get picked up than do.  You 
know, each network makes so many and then there’s one person who picks and 
chooses at the end of the day.
 
Cassandra:  It was called the “Elvira Show” and...
 
Mark:  And at CBS it was Howard Springer and he now runs Sony.  At the time he 
was at the top of CBS and he looked at the pilots and decided against Elvira at 
the time, and you know, that’s kind of like it.  After that happens it’s over.
 
Terry:  So, you actually were involved with Fellini and did a movie with him?
 
Cassandra:  Very briefly.  Yeah.  When I went to Italy... it was like meeting 
him right off the street practically.  I was walking down the street and I heard 
a guy calling my name and it was a guy who I’d met in Vegas who was a student 
film maker and he was a student director working on his film.  And he said, “You 
want to meet Mr. Fellini?”  And I said, “Oh my God, yes.” and he took me over...
 
Mark:  He was the assistant director wasn’t he?
 
Cassandra:  He was a student director, learning the film process..
 
Mark:  In training?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.  Like a student in training from UCLA.  And he introduced me 
to him and Fellini said, “Oh my God, you look like my wife Juliana Messini when 
she was young.”  He said, “Would you like a part in my film?”  I mean literally, 
just said, “Would you like...”  “Oh, Ok!”  You know?  So I was just an extra.  I 
was on for about 30 seconds.  I mean you blink and I’m gone.
 
Terry:  And you speak fluent Italian right?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, after I stayed in Italy for about a year and a half.  Yeah.
 
Terry:  And you were the lead singer of a rock band?
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.  That’s how I really learned Italian.  Traveling around with 
five Italians and no body spoke English.  And I was forced to learn to speak 
Italian or I would have gone insane you know?  Because I can’t communicate!
 
Terry:  As a fan I hope someday... you know, we get these like Rhino releases 
and you have like one or two songs...
 
Cassandra:  Mmmhmm.
 
Terry:  I hope someday you do an entire album singing because, you know, I 
really think you’re really good and I really get a kick out of the lyrics and 
everything.
 
Cassandra:  Oh thank you.  Thank you.
 
Terry:  You ever think of putting something out like that, of just Elvira 
through the whole thing.
 
Cassandra:  I never really thought about it.  We have so far.... so much work 
goes into an album it’s almost like making a movie.  I swear!
 
Terry:  Do you have anything going with Rhino or any video company that we can 
know about?
 
Cassandra:  I don’t know...
 
Terry:  Some years back you had Rhino releases and you had the live video 
releases. 
 
Mark:  Well not anything that we have to do with, but the movie “3-D Mania 103rd 
Dimension” is coming out on DVD.
 
Terry:  Oh great.
 
Cassandra:  Oh, it is?  
 
Mark:  Yeah.
 
Cassandra:  I didn’t know that!
 
Terry:  See, he’s been working!
 
Cassandra:  I know!
 
Mark:  It’s coming out on DVD through Slingshot.  Slingshot Entertainment.  Uh, 
that’s an independent film video DVD distribution company.
 
Terry:  And it’ll be in 3-D?  I mean there will be like glasses or something 
like that?
 
Mark:  I guess so.  I haven’t heard about that part.  Oh yes, yeah they are!  
They are going to put in some sort of 3-D format that you can watch with glasses 
on your television set.  And the music video that she performs in that, they... 
is about the equivalent of 3 million dollars for that 3 million... or that 3 
minute song.  And there’s only 250 Imax Theatres in the world and it’s still 
playing in a lot of the theatres in the world.  But most people don’t have an 
Imax Theatre that they can go to or have had the opportunity to see this.  It’s 
pretty cool that this is coming out, but we have nothing to do with it directly.
 
Terry:  Really?  What was it that I heard...
 
Cassandra:  That’s why I’m going to Colorado.  For an Imax... for an opening of 
it.
 
Terry:  Yeah, I was telling him that we’ve actually done some “Rocky Horror 
Picture Shows” for  Cinemark.
 
Cassandra:  Oh really?
 
Terry:  Yes.  That’s another story.  (Laughs).  What’s this I heard about you 
actually replacing Pamela Lee Anderson in a gay night club?  You performed 
there?  What was that all about?
 
Cassandra:  Oh... what was that?
 
Mark:  In 90...
 
Cassandra:  The reader’s digest version...
 
Mark:  Yeah.  In 90... was it ‘95 or ‘96 when we left Coors after 9 years to do 
Elvira’s Night Brew beer for this new company Beverage International Group, 
Coors, particularly Peter Coors, was pretty upset that Elvira left after all 
those years.  And it just so happened that the same Halloween Elvira was invited 
to make an appearance at the biggest night club in Colorado... the biggest gay 
club in Colorado, in Denver, and I guess Peter Coors was not happy about Elvira 
coming back to his home town...
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Mark:  So he made an offer to the club.  That year when Elvira left Coors they 
hired Pamela Lee Anderson to be the new Queen of Halloween as Coors likes to 
call it.  However...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, you know her, Pamela Anderson, the Queen of Halloween!
 
Terry:  That’s what I was going to say... I don’t get the association.
 
Cassandra:  We didn’t get it either.
 
Mark:  We don’t either.
 
Beckie:  Kind of off the wall!
 
Mark:  But it was like a last minute thing.  They found her and got her instead. 
 And, see by that time Coors had stopped television and radio advertisement, and 
that was the reason why we left Coors.  Halloween is the biggest alcohol 
consumption holiday of the year.  It’s the biggest car accident, car fatality of 
the year.  So MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) came down on Coors, came down 
on Bud for the Cryptkeeper and said, “You can’t be out advertising with these 
characters.  You know, Halloween is a childrens’ holiday!“  So Coors and Bud 
decided to pull out of television and radio.  We felt like we were punished for 
our success because between ‘86 and ‘94, you know, Elvira was the first person 
to do a beer Halloween commercial and now becomes not successful.  We felt like 
we were victimized for her success.
 
Cassandra:  Is this the Reader’s Digest version?
 
Mark:  Anyways so we left, but Coors did everything to make us fail.  She went 
to the Great American... what was it?  The Great American...
 
Cassandra:  Beer Festival or something like that...
 
Mark:  ...Beer Festival in Colorado.  It’s the biggest of the big... you know, 
the beer festivals.  And on her second day there they wouldn’t let her into the 
auditorium because her dress was too sexy.
 
Cassandra:  They brought police to stop me from going in, even though they had 
the volleyball girls from Bud or whatever they were...
 
Terry:  Yeah...
 
Cassandra:  ...in like little bras and little shorts.
 
Mark:  The Swedish... it was the Swedish team.
 
Cassandra:  They stopped me... it was the Swedish volleyball team or something.  
The police stopped me from going in.  And I said, “This is Elvira.  This is the 
dress I wear everyday.  I am in there on ads and stuff.”  And they said, “Well 
you can’t come in person.”  And we know it’s Coors who hired the police to tell 
them not to let me in.  And then at the nightclub thing...
 
Mark:  Well to finish that story, she came out and got on her cell phone, called 
the radio station, the newspaper, the T.V. station.  They all came down.
 
Terry:  There  you go.
 
Mark:  Made it on CNN, made it international news... my friend saw it in France. 
 And got a lot more... and it was like that way... and following up on that, 
just a couple of months later she was going to come back and Peter Coors went 
down to the club and told him, “Well I’ll get you Pamela Anderson for free.”
 
Cassandra:  ...if you give up Elvira.
 
Mark:  ...if you give up Elvira.  And the guy said, “Well this is a gay bar, 
what are we going to do with Pamela Anderson?”
 
Cassandra:  The guy said, “Are you joking?  What the heck are we going to do 
with Pamela Anderson?!?”  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  Do you ever hear from any feminists groups who say they don’t like the 
way you portray women as sexy, with cleavage and all that?
 
Cassandra:  No, they always say...
 
Terry:  Really?
 
Cassandra:  Maybe I’ve gotten a few letters like that, but overwhelmingly more 
for “I love... Elvira stands for like women’s rights.  You know, she doesn’t 
take any crap from men.”
 
Terry:  That’s right.
 
Cassandra:  And she does what she wants to do, and you know, she’s a figure that 
actually stands up for women.  The people with the trouble with the cleavage and 
stuff is like the really repressed, Christian right, afraid of breasts...
 
Beckie:  They’re the ones with the problem.  Get over it.
 
Cassandra:  I know!  Get over it.  Grow up.  God!  So..
 
Terry:  And you’re an animal rights activist too...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  You feel really strongly about that...
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah.
 
Terry:  Can you say something about that.
 
Cassandra:  Um, I don’t know.  I do a lot of work for PETA and animal rights 
things whenever I can.  And that’s one of our pet causes.  I do mostly causes 
for aids...
 
Mark:  No pun intended.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, no pun intended.  Pet causes.  Aids and animal rights are two 
of the biggest things that I concentrate on although I like other charities of 
course.  Anything I have time to do, you know?
 
Terry:  And you actually went up against Ringling Brothers Circus because you 
didn’t want elephants in the show?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  What happened with that?
 
Cassandra:  It’s really terrible.  There’s a bunch of things with the circus.  
It’s terrible cruelty that they use for elephants.  Elephants, first of all, 
they need like a 30 mile radius just to live comfortably.  That’s how far they 
walk everyday.  You have them in a circus, they’re stuck in a train car.  They 
use these horrible bull hooks to train them.  They don’t train them by rewarding 
them, they train them by beating them.  Young elephants are beaten until just 
they fall down on their knees and then completely broken, and then they’re 
trained from there to do unnatural things that elephants aren’t supposed to do.  
They’re wild animals.  They’re not pets, you know?  They’re not domesticated 
animals.  They’re not house cats.  They’re wild and they deserve to be where 
they are supposed to be.  Not performing and making people laugh and making... 
humiliating themselves in front of people for people’s entertainment, you know?  
And then you look at circuses like Cirque So Le.  It’s one of the most 
entertaining circuses in the world and it doesn’t have a single animal in it, 
you know?  So it’s not like down with all circuses, you know, it’s just that I’d 
loved to see like trained dog acts or... dogs like to perform, you know?  If you 
treat them well, they love...
 
Terry:  Like the dog in your first film right?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah!  Yeah.  I mean, let me tell you, that dog was more spoiled 
than me, and he was making a lot more money than me probably.
 
Terry:  With your work with your causes like PETA and that have you ever been or 
came close to being arrested for protesting or whatever?
 
Cassandra:  Mark has.  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  And would you be willing to?  Were you?  What happened?
 
Mark:  At the rose parade in ‘90.. what was it?  ‘92 or ‘93 I was arrested with 
Ingrid Neukor, the co-founder of PETA, and one other person.  We went out in 
front of the General Motors float with a banner and marched in front of it for 
about 30 seconds.
 
Cassandra:  On worldwide T.V.
 
Mark:  We were arrested by 12 or more policemen, also on worldwide television.  
We pulled out a banner... what was it?  “Crash tests keep General Motors in the 
dark ages.”
 
Cassandra:  They took dogs, and monkeys, and pigs in... strap them in seats of a 
car, and then crash the car going like 80 miles an hour...
 
Mark:  Well not even that.
 
Cassandra:  ...into... or yeah, just strap them into a seat and crash them into 
a wall.
 
Mark:  Yeah, they’d just strap them into a seat with like a metal thing that 
would just like hit them in the head.
 
Cassandra:  To study head injuries if you’re in a crash.  They did do it over 
and over and over.  It’s a liability thing so they’d get a low rate, you know?
 
Mark:  They’ve since stopped.  At the time we thought that is was really a...
 
Beckie:  As if it’s comparison to the head of a human?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, I know.  That’s true.
 
Beckie:  I don’t think so.  It’s a little... It’s totally different.
 
Cassandra:  I know.  They’re saying it’s the same resemblance, and they just did 
that.  And they were the only car company.  All the other companies who have 
better safety records use crash test dummies!  Not them.  They had to use real 
live animals because they’re cheaper!
 
Tiffany:  Well that’s like the Proctor and Gamble scandal.  When they were 
testing their products they would take rabbits and put the stuff in their eyes 
and...
 
Mark:  Yeah, the drain... the eye tests.
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah.  Oh yeah.  And see, anybody knows that that crap in your 
eyes is gonna hurt!
 
Mark:  They put draino in a rabbits eye...
 
Beckie:  They use to send me... they sent me the postcard of the rabbit 
afterwards.
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah.  Yeah, nice huh?
 
Beckie:  I sent them back one nasty letter and said, “If you ever send me 
anything like this again.”
 
Cassandra:  Well at least you learned what goes on so you know.
 
Beckie:  I didn’t need to learn.  I knew.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.  I know.  It’s sick.
 
Tiffany:  Well it’s not that they sent it to you... they shouldn’t be doing it!
 
Cassandra:  But, I was going to say, that the funny thing was that Mark was... 
when he was arrested he was dressed up as a rat.  He was dressed up as a giant 
rat.  So I had to go bail him down at the jail... uh, bail him out at the jail.  
And I went in there and there was this women sitting behind the counter, and I 
said... I said, “I’m here to pick up my husband.”  She goes, “Which one is he?” 
and she was like real bored.  And I said, “Um, um, he’s the.. he’s the rat.”  
(Laughs).  Because they were like... there were other animals... 
 
Mark:  A rabbit, a rat, and...uh
 
Cassandra:  A rabbit, a rat, and something else, but he’s the rat...
 
Mark:  A pig!
 
Cassandra:  And she goes, “Honey they’re all rats, I’m talking about which one 
is he?”  I go, “Oh yeah.  I mean he’s the one dressed like a rat!”
 
Terry:  Now people get you confused with Susan Sarandon?  I read that on the 
internet...
 
Cassandra:  People have come up to me and said, “Oh Ms. Sarandon....”... Ask me 
for my autograph and I go, “Oh, thank you.” and I start to write Elvira and they 
go, “Ms. Sarandon I’ve just loved you forever.”  And I’m like scratching out 
Elvira and going, “Susan... Oh, thank you!”  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  Do you know Susan by chance?
 
Cassandra:  Oh no.  I love her.  As an actress I love her work.
 
Terry:  You did a series in Australia that was similar to “Movie Macabre”.  Is 
that right?
 
Cassandra:  Yes.  
 
Terry:  What can you tell us about that?
 
Cassandra:  It was...
 
Mark:  Thriller Theatre.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah it was Thriller Theatre and it was a series of how many?
 
Mark:  I think 20.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah 20.
 
Mark:  18 - 20.
 
Cassandra:  Shows for the most popular television station in Sydney...
 
Mark:  Well it was national.  It was...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah it was national.
 
Mark:  Network 10.
 
Cassandra:  And it was just like my regular show only for Australia you know?  
Same thing.
 
Mark:  It was very simple.
 
Cassandra:  And I think it would have gone on to do something by Network 10 
burned and crashed or something didn’t they?
 
Mark:  All the networks did.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah they all... they had a big falling...
 
Mark:  They had a big meltdown in ‘90 - ‘91.
 
Terry:  Why do you think all the horror hosts basically died out but you’re 
still here and still successful?  What do you have that they didn’t have?
 
Cassandra:  Well...
 
Mark:  Cleavage.  (Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, cleavage.  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  I don’t know... Joe Bob... (Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  Now Mark, you’re not supposed to tell... you’re not supposed to tell 
everything!  No, number one, you know when you were a kid and there were horror 
host everywhere in the whole country?  And any little station could have a 
horror host because they’d get these packages of horror movies?  Now these 
packages of horror movies are unavailable.  So that’s one thing, all the local 
horror hosts have died out.  You can’t get those packages inexpensibly anymore.  
They used to be practically be giving the damn things away.  Now they’re a 
fortune.  They’re owned by some big conglomerate, and you can’t get them.  But, 
the other reason I got more filler is rather than being local, I was local in 
Hollywood.  And first of all, I think I got more notoriety being here, more 
television, more commercials.  And then we were able to syndicate my show, which 
went national.  Although what’s his name had gone partially national...
 
Mark:  Seymour.
 
Cassandra:  No not Seymour.  That great guy.  That great guy in Philadelphia...
 
Mark:  Zacharly?
 
Cassandra:  Zacharly.
 
Terry:  Yeah we love Zacherly.
 
Cassandra:  He didn’t go national.
 
Mark:  No.
 
Cassandra:  But he was in the southeast United States.
 
Mark:  No no no.  He started in Pennsylvania, and then he moved to New York.
 
Cassandra:  Oh, he was in one and then went to another market... ok.
 
Mark:  He was only in two markets.   He was only in Philadelphia and New York.
 
Cassandra:  Well he’s the closest thing to getting national..
 
Terry:  Yeah, he’s very well known.
 
Cassandra:  But I was... my show was broadcast nationally.  It looked like it 
was local.  Everybody in every little town thinks that I lived there.  They 
all..., “You’re from Arkansas, right?”  NO!  I mean, because they see the show 
and they think it’s so cheesy that you couldn’t possibly really have made it in 
Hollywood.  You know?  So that’s part of it, and then the Coors campaign and the 
Pepsi campaign really helped my national visibility.  You know, people all over 
the country saw me, so I mean, I think that’s how I’m still around.  And of 
course, I’m much much more beautiful and talented then the rest of them.  
(Laughs).  I’m not really going to say that!  I’m kidding!
 
Terry:  Would you like to do that again?  I know you’re doing movies and 
everything but let’s say, “Movie Macabre”, would you like to do something like 
that again weekly?
 
Cassandra:  I would.  I’d love to do that.  I’d love to do that again!  I mean, 
I’ve been wanting to do that since the day that I stopped.  I mean, it was a fun 
show.  It was a cheap show to do.  It was easy.  People loved it.  I just don’t 
know if it’s ever going to happen.  We’re always talking to people about doing 
a... always some mix of some... trying to get it done.
 
Mark:  Very recently we spoke with  AMC... you may already know this but...
 
Terry:  They’re probably your best bet.
 
Mark:  ...has amassed all the horror films; over 600 titles.  They have the AMC 
movies, they have license from Universal... the Universal Horror Classics, they 
have all the Edgar Allan Poe movies.  They have it all.  They have all the 
movies.
 
Tiffany:  Well don’t you host them during October on Halloween?
 
Terry:  Well she had a special in October...
 
Tiffany:  Last October on AMC...
 
Cassandra:  Um, what?
 
Mark:  She hosted Bride of Monster Mania which was a documentary.  A documentary 
about female monsters and different...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, it was similar thing, but it was a actually a documentary.  It 
wasn’t a movie... a movie, you know, with all different movie parts.
 
Mark:  AMC is maybe going to have a horror network like there is a Sci-Fi 
network who I devote to.  Sci-Fi is completely leaving horror.  They’re not 
going to do horror.
 
Terry:  You got it.  You got it.  That’s totally what I believe.
 
Beckie:  They’re not?
 
Mark:  Well they’re doing nothing but Sci-Fi.  All their programming is Sci-Fi 
and it’s been very successful for them so their sticking with Sci-Fi.
 
Terry:  USA went with...
 
Mark:  But there’s an opening for horror.  AMC was going to start a horror 
network this year actually and we were talking to them about it with Elvira 
being the host of the whole network, but more recently MGM went back and put a 
billion dollars into Rainbow media for 25% ownership and the next network it 
looks like from Rainbow media is going to be the MGM channel.  It’s going to 
play MGM classics.
 
Cassandra:  (Whispers into mic.)  Great!  Thanks!
 
Mark:  And then the horror channel is going to be... come time later.  Meanwhile 
they’re playing horror movies on AMC late night but...
 
Tiffany:  (To Cassandra)  It’s like, “I’ve been waiting for this for so long!”  
(Laughs).
 
Mark:  They... we’re waiting to see if they’re wanting to do anything with us 
with a program or the network.
 
Terry:  Would you ever consider trying to do a network on your own?  I know the 
cost must be staggering.
 
Mark:  Um, I don’t even see how that even would be possible, you know?  We can 
do something with our website, but that’s not, you know, cable.  That’s a whole 
different thing and we are going around Elvira T.V.  It looks like by the end of 
the year we’re still working through it.  Because we work on a... sort of a 
roots budget here.  What we make we put back into it and for five years we’ve 
been kind of running out of even basis.  But we’re at a point to where we can 
offer Elvira T.V.  for a subscription... on a subscription basis and we’ll start 
with maybe 100 3 to 5 minute programs.  50 of the episodes would be the making 
of this, “Elvira’s Haunted Hills” and then another 50 episodes of the archive.  
Of which we have hundreds of hours of Elvira so we’ll just start slicing and 
dicing it and putting it on Elvira T.V., and let people subscribe and watch it.  
But, you know, it is streaming, and streaming is not cable television.
 
Terry:  They’re trying to make it cable television.  They’re saying everyone is 
on the internet, rather than being on a T.V. set.
 
Mark:  Well see you’re closed out of the game.  You know, the media companies 
control the networks.  Somebody like Rainbow media who has AMC and Independent 
Film Channel, and Sundance Channel, or something like that and they want to add 
a new channel, and they go out to cable operators across the country trying to 
get a new channel on it, it’s not easy.  It’s not even easy for Warner Brothers 
to have a new channel or Disney to have a new channel.  So forget it if you’re 
an independent trying to start a new cable channel.  You’ll never succeed.
 
Terry:  Does it annoy you that you’ve been more successful as Elvira then as 
Cassandra as an actress?
 
Cassandra:  No, because I really am Cassandra Peterson.  (Laughs).  You may not 
know this, but I really am.  No, you know, I’m like happy... fulfilled as an 
actor in any circumstance.  You know?  Wearing a clown suit, or what ever.  It 
doesn’t matter.  I never feel like, “Oh God, I’ve got to break out of this 
character.”  I’m just happy I found work and support myself and my family with 
the career I want to do.  You know?
 
Beckie:  When you go around, like you’re going to Colorado and everything, Mark 
do you travel a lot with her?
 
Mark:  Not a lot.
 
Cassandra:  Not much anymore.
 
Beckie:  Or do you stay at home?  Are you pretty much on your own when it comes 
to that?
 
Cassandra:  He usually stays at home because I take an assistant with me and I 
need help and Mark doesn’t want to help me get dressed or do my hair.  (Laughs). 
 So I need help like doing that so I take someone who can really sit there, you 
know, and glue my eyelashes on for me and stuff like that.  He doesn’t want to 
do that.
 
Beckie:  So when you get older he’s not going to be willing to assist you!
 
Cassandra:  No, I don’t think so.  I don’t... younger or older, I don’t think 
so!
 
Terry:  So the day ever comes that you don’t do Elvira, like maybe you’re 95 or 
whatever...
 
Cassandra:  Or maybe!  (Chuckles).
 
Terry:  What do you foresee yourself as doing, later on in life, in retirement?
 
Cassandra:  I don’t know.  Hmmm.
 
Terry:  Basically being a housewife?
 
Cassandra:  I was going to ask you the same question!  I don’t know.  Sometimes 
I think about maybe acting as myself in something else, I mean plays or doing 
acting work, maybe not.  Maybe... sometimes I really don’t want to be an actor 
at all.
 
Mark:  Writing.
 
Cassandra:  Maybe writing.  Writing.  I like writing.  You don’t have to look 
good.
Terry:  That’s right!  That’s right.  That’s why I was explaining to him... 
(Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  Not that you don’t look fabulous... but  (Laughs).
 
Terry:  ...”Oh, lets walk!”  Well I’m a writer and I don’t you an exercise 
machine and... you know... (Laughs).  What is your favorite role you enjoyed 
other than Elvira when you were yourself?  Well you were never yourself, but I 
mean you know...
 
Cassandra:  Oh God.  Not, yeah, no.  I don’t know if I... The best thing that I 
did that wasn’t Elvira... I was already Elvira but I got this part in “Attica” 
with Richard Chamberlain and... Allan Cordon and the Lost City of Gold which I’m 
in it not but one second because of a long bizarre set of circumstances, but I 
was like the villain in the movie.  And I went over to Africa for two months, 
which is an incredible experience, in Zimbabwe, had the most amazing time, and 
met Richard Chamberlain, who... we became great friends and had a wonderful time 
together there and it was just a great experience, and doing this weird part 
where I was this villain... villainess woman who spoke a weird made-up language 
that they concocted.  But working in Africa and animals... baboons would be 
sitting on the catering tables in the morning when you came to work and there’d 
be a herd of hippos you’d see down by the river when you got up in the morning 
and monkeys would come in you’re room and eat.. steal your, you know, your trays 
and stuff when you were ordering room service.  (Laughs).  It was great.  I 
mean, it was real... that was a great experience.
 
Terry:  You lived in a haunted house?
 
Cassandra:  Well, we... yeah.  I would say it was kind of haunted, yeah.  We had 
a house that was pretty bizarre...very...  A lot of weird things went on there.  
Eventually we had a minister come there and use some sage and go through the 
house and kind of cleanse it because, I’ll tell ya, too many weird things were 
going on.  Because it was an old house built in... when... what year was it 
built?
 
Mark:  It was built in 1910.
 
Cassandra:  1910 and it had had 3 deaths in the house.  3 suspicious deaths.  
Well, a suicide and two murders, and there was some weird stuff going on there.  
We kept hearing things.  It was bizarre.
 
Terry:  Do you believe in the supernatural?
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah.
 
Terry:  Definitely.  So do I.
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah.  Definitely.
 
Terry:  And you lived by O.J. at one time didn’t you?
 
Cassandra:  (Chuckles).  Yeah we moved from there to like O.J.’s area.  
(Laughs).
 
Terry:  Yeah that was a good move!  (Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.  (Laughs).  And then we moved away from O.J.’s area.  Yeah.
 
Terry:  When you personalize, do you basically hang out with the Hollywood type, 
or just normal people?  I know you’re a mother.  I heard you’re like with the 
PTA or something too, is that right?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah, I mean, I am involved with our children’s stuff and all that.  
No I... we hang out with more of the normal people.  Not so many show biz types. 
 Richard Chamberlain is one of the few exceptions, and well in our family Robert 
Dorthelm is a director and some of my friends are actors and stuff but nobody 
too famous.  I don’t know... not too show bizy of  a crowd... do we?
 
Mark:  Well it seems like a lot of our friends live in different part of the 
world too.  And we know... and I was thinking about this the other day... we 
know quite a few musicians.  Of any category we probably know more musicians 
than actors or movie stars.
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.  It’s a weird... but some of our friends are just moms and 
dads in the school, you know?  A lot of people in a lot of different... 
different...
 
Terry:  Now you had a child quite late in life...
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  What did that mean to you, having a child?
 
Cassandra:  Oh well, it was... we had tried for years before and I had six 
miscarriages and then finally got pregnant with her when I was 43.  And uh, so 
that was amazing.  Ugh!  It was a miracle!
 
Terry:  Was it a natural birth?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah.
 
Terry:  Was it hard?
 
Cassandra:  Yeah!  (Laughs).  It was very hard.  I don’t recommend it!
 
Terry:  Oh, it’s just the size of a watermelon!  (Laughs).
 
Tiffany:  Oh, it was a piece of cake!  (Laughs).
 
Cassandra:  You remember right?  Yeah yeah...
 
Beckie:  No, I had a sea section.  I went the easy way.
 
Cassandra:  No no no, I actually had a sea section.  After 26 hours of labor I 
ended up in a sea section.
 
Beckie:  I didn’t even have labor!
 
Cassandra:  I had 26 hours of labor.  It was hell, and then ended up having to 
have a sea section but no, it was natural... we didn’t do any fertility.  We 
didn’t do any... nothing... nothing could stop me from having miscarriages.  
They didn’t know what was wrong.  They did all kinds of tests.  They couldn’t 
find anything that should be causing it what so ever.  Maybe it was just my age, 
you know?  I don’t know.  But what’s funny, you know, we had a totally 
healthy... I had a great pregnancy.  I was doing work out videos when I was 
pregnant.  I mean, I gained exactly 35 pounds.  I felt so energetic and really 
good, and it all went really smooth.  We had a totally healthy baby and really, 
whooo!  Lucky man!  In the nick of time!  I wouldn’t of wanted to be any older 
and had the baby, let me tell ya!
 
Terry:  So I take it that’s the end of the line right?
 
Cassandra:  That is it.  Definitely the end of the line.  Yeah, yeah!
 
Terry:  I take it you must do like the gym thing or something.  You basically 
kind of just blew it off like, “Oh I don’t do anything.”  You’ve got to be doing 
something to stay looking the way you do.  What’s you’re program like?
 
Cassandra:  No, I do.  Not as much as I... well I used...  I really much more... 
I used to... Before I did the movie I was really exercising everyday, like 7 
days a week I would say.  And I did 5 days a week with a trainer and then walked 
7 days everyday along with that for like a half an hour to an hour.  Now, since 
I came back from the movie I don’t think I’ve recovered from the movie yet.  
I’m... I do a couple weeks... a couple times a week with a trainer and walking 
as often as I can, maybe 5 days a week.  I need to step that up.  I can tell.  
(Chuckles).  It’s starting to show.
 
Terry:  So I heard you stabbed Richard O’Brien?
 
Cassandra:  I... yes.  I poked him with my knife accidentally... 
 
Terry:  Ohhhh!
 
Cassandra:  I know...
 
Beckie:  About like when you got hit at the show!
 
Cassandra:  I just... I know! ...just missed his eye with my knife, my little 
dagger.  I just hit him the eye and bridge of his nose!  Oh!
 
Terry:  What was it like working with Richard?
 
Cassandra:  Oh it was great.  Well, yeah... well, Richard and I had conflicting 
opinions.  He liked to do things his own way and kind of be in charge and he 
liked to change the lines of the script to what he thought would be better.
 
Terry:  Did that bother you?
 
Cassandra:  No, well, not until he started doing it all the time.  I mean, at 
first, you know, once in a while you change a line because you’d think it’s 
better, that’s fine.  But pretty soon he would change almost every line, and it 
was kind of like, “Um, Richard, that’s not the line.”  But as a person and an 
actor he’s great.
 
Terry:  I know from meeting him that he is just exuberant and really has a lot 
of energy.
 
Cassandra:  Oh yeah!  He’s just the life of the party.  Even after the shoot for 
a day was done, I’d go home and go right to bed and he’d go out and party all 
night.  And he looks great!  That’s the annoying thing; he looks great!  I mean, 
it’s not fair.  I try hard to look like I do.  I mean, I do everything right, I 
eat well, I get sleep, I exercise.  And Richard does everything wrong and still 
looks better than I do!  (Laughs). END OF INTERVIEW 
 
 Full Cast and Crew for Elvira's Haunted Hills (2001)   
   
Directed by 
Sam Irvin    
  
Writing credits (in credits order) 
Cassandra Peterson   (character) 
Cassandra Peterson   (written by) & 
John Paragon   (written by) 
  
Cast (in credits order) 
Cassandra Peterson ....  Herself (Elvira) (as Elvira & Elura)  
Richard O'Brien (I) ....  Vladimere Hellsubus  
Mary Scheer ....  Ema Hellsubus  
Scott Atkinson ....  Dr. Bradley Bradley  
Heather Hopper (I) ....  Roxana Hellsubus  
Mary Jo Smith ....  ZouZou  
Gabi Andronache ....  Adrian  
Jerry Jackson (IV) ....  The English Gentleman  
Theodor Danetti ....  Innkeeper  
Lucia Maier ....  Maid  
Constantin Cotimanis ....  Coachman  
Remus Cernat ....  Handsome Man (Nicholae)  
Mark Pierson ....  Man Servant  
  
Produced by 
Mark Pierson   (producer)  
  
Original music by 
Jerry Jackson (IV)   (song "Le Music Hall")  
Todd Rundgren   (musical cameo)  
  
Cinematography by 
Viorel Sergovici    
  
Casting 
Florin Chevorchian    
  
Production Design by 
Radu Corciova    
  
Art Direction 
Ioana Corciova    
  
Set Decoration 
Raluca Ioanovici    
  
Costume Design by 
Radu Corciova    
Jerry Jackson (IV)   (dance costumes)  
  
Makeup Department 
Gabi Cretan ....  assistant makeup artist  
Ioana Lita ....  key makeup artist  
Angela Tugui ....  key hair stylist  
  
Production Management 
Gabriel Popescu ....  unit production manager  
  
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director 
Daniel Barbulescu ....  first assistant director  
Ingrid Cristea ....  second assistant director  
Nicoleta Molnar ....  second assistant director  
  
Art Department 
Iacob Catalin ....  assistant property master  
Petre Gheorghe ....  assistant property master  
Cristian Ivan ....  lead set dresser  
Magdalena Marasescu ....  construction coordinator  
Ioja Marinel ....  assistant property master  
Carmen Pasula ....  assistant art director  
Adrian Popa ....  property master  
Doicescu Stefan ....  assistant property master  
Ioja Stefanel ....  assistant property master  
Nicolae Trandafir ....  assistant property master  
  
Sound Department 
Doru Popescu ....  boom operator  
Calin Potcoava ....  boom operator  
Ali Yener ....  sound mixer  
  
Special Effects 
Ion Ianciu ....  special effects assistant 
Martin Ilie ....  special effects supervisor: pyrotechnics

-END-